Obama and Reagan

A few days ago Obama Barack said some good things about President Reagan during a radio interview. Hillary attacked him over this during their next debate. This was unjustified but understandable.

What Obama did was to point out that Reagan was a transformative president in a way that few presidents have been. Bill Clinton was included in the group of non-transformative presidents.

He was absolutely right. Reagan left office 20 years ago but the part is still fighting over who can claim his heritage. Most of the presidential candidates are trying to run as the next Reagan. No one is running as the next Bush (although Huckabee qualifies by virtue of being a caring conservative). No one is running as the next Ford, Nixon, or Eisenhower, either.

On the other side, no one, not even Hillary, is running as the next Bill Clinton. Hillary talks about fiscal responsibility (while promising $150 billion is hand-outs) but she is running far to the left of her husband. None of the candidates are invoking Carter, Johnson, Kennedy, or Truman, either. The big question among Democrats is who can create a coalition to replace FDR's. FDR was the Democrats' last transformative president.

We expect presidential candidates to aspire to be a Reagan or Roosevelt. It's hard to win when you are promising to be mediocre. Hillary should understand this and not take it personally. After all, she is against NAFTA, one of her husband's major accomplishments.

Obama has also suggested that he will take up the mantle of Martin Luther King. Can he do this?

No. Obama is neither Reagan nor King. Reagan worked for years reshaping the party starting as governor of California. He embodied new economic principles and the radical idea that the government was not good at doing some things. Obama has nothing new to offer. He just packages a conventional Democratic platform. You could switch his platform with Hillary's or Edwards's and no one would notice.

The comparisons with King are even more of a stretch. King led a cause. Obama may have spent some time working as an activist but he wasn't a leader. At most he is the beneficiary of King's legacy.